Talk:Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe

Blindly copied from Philip Schaff's 1882 "History of the Christian Church"

After changing Herzogenbusch, a WWII concentration camp, to 's-Hertogenbosch as the location of a Brothers of the Common Life school, I noticed some general oddities about this article. Hertogenbusch occurred in the paragraph: "Popular education, during the century before the Reformation, was far more advanced in Germany than in other nations. The chief schools, conducted by the Brothers of the Common Life, were located at Zwolle, Deventer, 's-Hertogenbosch and Liège." Does it strike anyone else as odd that all these towns are in the Netherlands and Belgium, rather than in Germany? Besides that, the "far more advanced" statement seems painfully POV and hard to support, in light of the abundance of universities in Italy in the 15th century.

The "Leaders of humanism" starts out with the intriguing: "The chief Humanists of Germany were Rudolph Agricola, Reuchlin and Erasmus. To the last two a separate treatment is given as the pathfinders of biblical learning, the venerabiles inceptores of modern biblical research." Besides the fact that Agricola was a Frisian from Groningen and Erasmus a Hollander from Rotterdam, the second, archaic sentence seemed to suggest that there should be a separate chapter on Reuchlin and Erasmus.

Indeed the text is blindly copied from the 1882 book History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff, a German-educated theologian from the German Reformed church. I dare say there is a better, more modern, and less biased text to find as a source to describe the history of "Northern Renaissance humanism". The latter would be a far better title than "humanism in Germany" as well. Afasmit 07:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I added a bunch of tags; see if there will be a response now. I noticed that in April one sentence, straight from the original text, was taken out. It's a doozy: "Had Italy been careful to take lessons from the pedagogy of the North, it is probable her people would to-day be advanced far beyond what they are in intelligence and letters." The rest of the text honestly is not much better and it would be best to start from scratch here. Should I just ask for a deletion? Obviously the topic is encyclopedic. Afasmit 08:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm appalled that this hasn't gotten more attention. If it doesn't, I say deletion; these are some pretty serious issues. Dextrose (talk) 04:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• There is a case for taking Germany & the Dutch/Flemish-speaking areas together in this period. A rename to say Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe might be in order; we don't have an article on English RH either. Deletion is rather extreme, but if no-one wants to rewrite it properly the more extreme POV should be removed. Johnbod (talk) 11:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

It was some German monks who brought the art to Italy from Mainz (in what is now Germany), where Guttenberg set up his press.

The book Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe by Charles G. Nauert (Cambridge University Press [1995] 2006) has a chapter entitled "Crossing the Alps" about humanism in Northern Europe, if anyone wants to read it. I have just got hold of it and have only got through the beginning, however, so far I would say that it looks like an excellent source for these matters. Of course, there was no Germany until 1860 or so, as Johnbod says, there is a case for including the tradition of including the Low Countries as part of "Germany". Humanism came later to German and Dutch lands than it did to Italy and it tended to have a more exclusively religious character. Nevertheless, the study of ancient Roman and Greek (pagan) authors was considered the foundation of literacy, even in religious movements, such as the Devotio moderna. Nauert agrees basically with scholars who maintain that the tradition that the Bretheren of the Common Life was an educational movement having many schools is a myth, or at least is very exaggerated.173.77.13.93 (talk) 03:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

My error above -- German monks brought printing to Italy not "from" Italy173.56.164.177 (talk) 05:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistency in the section "Italian roots of the humanism in Germany"

This section contains the following:

Campanus, a witty poet of the papal court, who was sent as legate to the Diet of Regensburg by Paul II, and afterwards was made a bishop by Pius II, abused Germany for its dirt, cold climate, poverty, sour wine and miserable fare.

I think "Campanus" is probably Giovanni Antonio Campani (1429—1477) because he fits the time frame and because (according to the Wikipedia article on him) he was made a bishop by Pius II. However, the quoted text indicates that Paul II was Pope before Pius II, whereas the opposite is true. This makes me wonder who, if anyone, sent Campani to the purported Diet. The entries on the Diet of Regensburg dab page don't include anything for the 15th century, so no help there. Does anyone know what's going on here? --Auntof6 (talk) 09:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)